A Good Mother at Home, Twenty-Nine

Home, even his own room.

He returned here directly from the club in the shopping district through teleportation.

Looking at all the familiar objects in the room, he was suddenly overcome by a feeling of having lived through another lifetime. It wasn't that the club lacked a place to rest. In fact, the two floors above the club were used as living quarters.

As the club's owner, he could live a very long time as long as he wasn't planning to wait for death. The long river of time would cause the club's owner to lose his home, leaving the club as his only remaining place of belonging.

That was why the two upper floors of the club were so exquisitely furnished.

However, those things were still very far away from Luo Qiu. The expensive incense burning upstairs at the club was soothing, but it couldn't compare to the bedding in this small room, filled with the scent of sunlight.

Luo Qiu switched on the old-fashioned CD player in the room. The slowly flowing notes made him feel carefree.

He lay on the bed and tried hard to recall everything that had happened over the past two days.

He had completed his first transaction, and the thirty days of life he had originally had left had become sixty. It wasn't that having thirty extra days meant he could take his situation lightly. It was simply that Luo Qiu felt he needed to be alone and calm down. Otherwise, it would be difficult for him to plan what he should do next.

He wasn't naturally a rational person. It was just that spending so much time alone, with the loneliness that had always lingered deep in his heart, had made him more accustomed to thinking.

Under normal circumstances, thinking things through before acting and acting without thinking were fundamentally different.

He slowly planned his path—if nothing unexpected happened, his life would have no end in sight. He would not age either, but after ten years, or at most twenty, he would no longer be able to keep this secret.

The club wandered from place to place. Perhaps that was why it had come to this commercial street this time?

There was no way to stay in one place for too long, and it was even more impossible to form any attachments. He couldn't have a family, because he would have to disappear from his family's sight at the happiest moment. What remained besides his family's pain would probably be his own sorrow as well.

Luo Qiu suddenly understood a little why the previous owner of the club had shown such wild joy and impatience... impatience to break free from this loneliness.

The former owner might have personally watched his relatives, his lover, or even his descendants grow old and die one by one—of course, this was merely Luo Qiu's groundless speculation.

Before returning, he had asked You Ye what the previous owner had been like. From You Ye's answer, he had learned only that the former owner was a taciturn man.

The former owner would appear only when a customer arrived. Normally, he stayed almost entirely in his room, winding up an ancient music box and listening to it for an entire day.

And You Ye had listened to it for three hundred years.

Seen in that light, it was rather terrifying—perhaps one day in the future, Luo Qiu would become like the former owner.

"First, I'll live these ten years like a normal person."

Perhaps he would be accompanied by solitude until eternity in the future. But for Luo Qiu, for someone still young enough to be filled with fantasies, the club's mysteries and all its wonders were even more enticing.

The CD player played an English song as he drifted off to sleep. Its name was "Amazing Grace."

As he was about to fall asleep, Luo Qiu felt that if what he yearned for was solitude, then perhaps all of this was, to him, a strange grace.

He woke up that night.

He had probably woken because he heard noises coming from the kitchen.

Luo Qiu stepped out of his room. The aroma drifting from the kitchen told him that the person cooking was making one of his favorite dishes.

The woman was very plain-looking, dressed in a simple blue shirt and jeans, with her hair casually tied back. Wearing an apron, she was busying herself in the kitchen.

Although she was plain, she was also young and beautiful. At twenty-nine, she was at what should have been a woman's most beautiful age in modern society.

She probably had many successful men pursuing her, but it was obvious that she had spent all that time going home to care for her child.

Ren Ziling had said it was simply because of her interests that she had worked as a reporter at a newspaper ever since graduating. Apparently, she was now the deputy editor-in-chief.

The young reporter had met Luo Qiu's father while covering and interviewing people during a murder case. Then, as if she had been bewitched, she had fallen in love at first sight with Luo Qiu's father, a widower who had lost his wife at a young age.

Perhaps something had happened during that process—something capable of shaking a middle-aged widower and a young woman, a story Luo Qiu knew nothing about.

After that, this woman named Ren Ziling had begun to leave her mark on the drab two-bedroom apartment with a living room.

It had already been three years... since that man had passed away.

But she was still here.

"Luo Qiu, you're awake? I was planning to wake you after I finished cooking." Ren Ziling heard the noise behind her and turned around with the spatula in her hand.

Perhaps because the heat was so high, Ren Ziling's bangs had stuck neatly to her forehead, strand by strand, like threads that an embroiderer had mistakenly sewn in the wrong place.

Seeing Luo Qiu stare at her without saying a word, Ren Ziling instinctively touched her face. "Did I get something on my face?"

Luo Qiu shook his head and turned toward the living room to watch television for a while, but he still reminded her, "...The range hood isn't on."

"Ah! Oh no!"

As if she had only just realized it, Ren Ziling hurriedly switched on the range hood. She fumbled about in a panic, but still hurried to emphasize, "It'll be ready soon! Really soon! Do you want to wash your hands first?"

Of course, she didn't hear any response from Luo Qiu. Ren Ziling was already used to it and continued bustling around the hot wok.

Luo Qiu switched on the television and began watching the news—it was how he had spent most of the past few years.

At nine that evening, they sat down at the table.

Ren Ziling seemed quite proud of her cooking and enthusiastically recommended her handiwork to Luo Qiu, placing food directly into his bowl.

Luo Qiu suddenly said, "If work has been busy lately, you don't have to come back to cook."

The club was operating normally... Perhaps Luo Qiu's schedule was even more irregular than that of this serving deputy editor-in-chief.

Ren Ziling suddenly tapped Luo Qiu's bowl with her chopsticks. Putting on a stern expression, she said, "Luo Qiu, I don't think I've even asked you what that so-called 'spur-of-the-moment trip' was about, have I? So shouldn't you at least preserve my rights as your mother?"

"Mm..."

Luo Qiu could only lower his head and chew on the braised lion's head in his bowl.

As expected... after all these years, she still couldn't make this dish properly.

Perhaps because she was too tired, after eating and washing up, Ren Ziling didn't even bother brushing her teeth. She went straight into her room and fell asleep.

After washing the dishes, Luo Qiu planned to enjoy the breeze on the balcony, but he suddenly heard You Ye calling him, saying that a new customer had arrived at the club.

The so-called new customers were people who hadn't found the club because they possessed a voucher, but had instead stumbled into it on their own... They were known as new customers.